


in principle incapable of translation into an ordinary language

by intimatopia



Category: Given (Anime)
Genre: Extended Metaphors, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, M/M, Panic Attacks, Repression, codependent relationship, it's in the past but it stays u know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22174672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intimatopia/pseuds/intimatopia
Summary: If someone were to behave as if they understood a language of which no-one else can make sense, we might call this an example of a private language. It is not sufficient here, however, for the language to simply be one that has not yet been translated. In order to count as aprivate languagein Wittgenstein's sense, it must be in principle incapable of translation into an ordinary language – if for example it were to describe those inner experiences supposed to be inaccessible to others.Private language argument, WikipediaSometimes Mafuyu felt like the last speaker of a dead language.
Relationships: Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka
Comments: 16
Kudos: 125





	in principle incapable of translation into an ordinary language

**Author's Note:**

> every 4 months like clockwork i get emo about private languages but this time i spat out a fic. been sitting on this for a few days because i like to post during exams to cheer myself up but i wrote another given fic today, bumping my backlog to (2) so i thought i might as well post this. warning for some internalized ableism
> 
> huge thanks to vic for helping w ritsuka's voice. the line where he yells is literally hers.

Sometimes Mafuyu felt like the last speaker of a dead language.

He couldn’t explain what it was like to anyone—not even Ritsuka, who did his very best to understand everything Mafuyu asked him to understand. Not because he didn’t have the words to describe it—he did. They spun in his head at night, endlessly, waiting for a chance to be let out. He daydreamed about saying them.

_Imagine you’re the last Japanese speaker on the planet and there’s other languages but no one will ever understand your favorite song unless you translate it for them word by word and there’s no language that could capture the puns and rhymes and metaphors. Like being stuck on an island alone and the only way out is letting go of everything you’ve ever known. Imagine trying to explain what it feels like to be touched to a star. Imagine trying to translate the untranslatable._

And then he’d never say them. Because it felt like a betrayal. As though even _attempting_ to translate it—that is, assuming he _could_ —would be akin to exhuming and autopsying Yuki’s body, holding entrails up to the light and inviting comment and discussion.

A stage was different, Mafuyu would tell himself, when that anxiety grew large enough to push him to the corners of his bed. A stage was _safe._ He was on top of it and everyone else _wasn’t_ and it wasn’t _Yuki’s_ organs he was holding up but his _own_ and he believed, or had to believe, that _those_ still belonged to him.

He turned the thoughts over in his mind, building arguments and counterarguments and playing them out in voices stolen from his new friends. _Wouldn’t Yuki want you to try?_ Haruki might say, with his usual gentle faith in the kindness of people. To which Mafuyu imagined himself saying, _no, he wouldn’t. He always hated when other people tried to understand what we had. He never liked sharing his things and I was the exception and the cause of the rule._ And if Ritsuka heard _that_ he’d say, _he’s dead and you’re here. You can say what you like and if he loved you he’d be happy about you finding your voice._ He’d say it guilelessly, never intending to imply that Yuki hadn’t truly loved Mafuyu. The only honest response Mafuyu could muster to that would be, _he was my voice._

Which made them sound more codependent than they were. Which begged the question of _whether_ they were codependent. And Mafuyu didn’t want to answer that question.

At this point he would force himself to get up and feed Tama no matter whether Tama actually needed food. It was as good a distraction as any, and Tama’s happiness was a fine if insufficient substitute for his own.

One evening when it was just him and Ritsuka after band practice and Ritsuka was ignoring him in favour of fiddling with the tuning of his guitar it occurred to Mafuyu that he was not the last speaker of a dead language but the _only_ speaker of a language _no one else_ had ever understood, and before he knew it Ritsuka was gripping his shoulders and begging him to breathe. 

He ended up half in tears. He hadn’t thought himself into a panic attack in _months_ (because he hasn't been _thinking_ ) and it made no _sense_ that he’d managed it _again_ just when things seemed to be getting _better._

Haruki and Akihiko took one look at them when they returned from their smoke break and suggested they all go out for dinner. Mafuyu wanted to run away and hide under his blankets. He wanted to turn around and see Yuki there and not have to explain that he’d done this to himself because Yuki already _knew_ and for all his disappointment he’d also kiss it better. But Ritsuka’s arm was heavy around his shoulders and they were all too _loud_ for him to drown out—

—surprisingly, warmth and company helped. He stayed quiet throughout on reflex, but afterwards Ritsuka also walked him home and when they were almost at Mafuyu’s door he burst out with, “Mafuyu, I want to help. But you gotta let me.” He sounded pleading, voice just this side of shouting.

 _Yuki_ would never have let himself sound like that. Ritsuka wasn’t Yuki. Mafuyu knew all this already but he relearnt it in the span of a second and when it was over Ritsuka was still looking at him, waiting on an answer. “What if I never stop wanting him back?” Mafuyu asked, and he didn’t know _why_ he was asking or what answer he wanted to hear.

Ritsuka settled his big, careful hands on Mafuyu’s ribs. They were so much warmer than Yuki’s had ever been. Calloused in the same ways, the same places, but Ritsuka’s calluses were harder and less likely to be worn down with hand cream. Not that Mafuyu had close to the courage required to bring up that as an option.

“We’ll be here anyway,” Ritsuka said, stony like he was facing down an army. “ _I’ll_ be here anyway.”

Mafuyu’s greatest secret, for all his life, had been that he was a _much_ more bitter and resentful and _hateful_ person than he let others see. Yuki hadn’t known, because somewhere around the time he’d decided that it was his duty to protect Mafuyu from the world Mafuyu had realized that there was only so much room between them for anger and Yuki was always occupying every inch of it, so it became second nature to bury his own anger, and then his resentment, and then his bitterness.

No one knew. Mafuyu was _tired_ of keeping it that way. And something about the way Ritsuka looked immovable right now made it easy to snap. “Here with _me_?” he said harshly. “I’m a mute who can’t do anything right and can’t stop missing someone over a _year_ dead that I was responsible for the death of _anyway_ and it’s not like that’s not, not _boring—_

Ritsuka hugged him. One second Mafuyu was spitting his words into air and the next they were muffled in Ritsuka’s blazer, where they sank between the threads and starved.

It didn’t feel as good to shout as Mafuyu had thought it would. He just felt worse for making Ritsuka listen to that. For putting things into the world he’d regret and never be able to take back. His anger wasn’t like other people’s—clean and self-contained. His had turned rancid, and it burnt with a smoke and stench like dirty oil.

“I know you’re angry,” Ritsuka said into Mafuyu’s hair. “You have every right to be.”

 _Not true!_ some voice in Mafuyu’s head trilled. That was the voice that asked if he and Yuki had been codependent. He hated that voice. “But there’s no point,” he mumbled. “It doesn’t _change_ anything.”

“Saying that doesn’t make you _less_ angry,” Ritsuka said, like this was the simplest and most obvious thing in the world. “So you might as well see the anger through.”

Mafuyu had never thought about it like that. “I don’t _get_ angry, though,” he whined. “I’m not the angry one.”

“Oh, am _I_ the angry one then?” Ritsuka was laughing, not unkindly. And because he was still hugging Mafuyu he could feel the way laughter changed Ritsuka’s body. An amp in his stomach, a vibration that flooded Mafuyu via contact. “But _I’m_ not angry right now.”

Mafuyu pressed his face harder against Ritsuka’s blazer. The words _private language_ buzzed in his head. That hum got quieter the more he focused on the way Ritsuka smelled, reminding him why he loved Ritsuka as he did.

Was it possible to be in love with two people at once? Was it possible to love them both equally in wildly different ways? Was it okay to be in love with two people if one of them was _dead_?

“I guess that makes _me_ the angry one,” he mumbled. “I’ve never been the angry one before.”

“If it helps,” Ritsuka said softly. “You don’t have to be the angry one _all_ the time.”

“Thank god. This is exhausting,” Mafuyu confessed. Another laugh rolled through Ritsuka, warming Mafuyu down to his toes. Even his ears felt hot. He counted courage in the pulse of Ritsuka’s blood and said, “Do you want to come inside?”

“Sure,” Ritsuka said, a pulse and a half later. Mafuyu relaxed.

He offered Ritsuka some pineapple cake, which he turned down, so Mafuyu bore his plate up to his bedroom while tugging Ritsuka along with his other hand. This space had always only belonged to him and then to him and Yuki and then to him alone again and it was strangely exciting to have Ritsuka here every time. It never got old.

They settled shoulder to shoulder on Mafuyu’s bed. Ritsuka wrapped an arm around Mafuyu, and in return Mafuyu offered him the second bite of cake. Ritsuka gave him a slightly exasperated look when Mafuyu held the fork up to his mouth, but his cheeks were pink and his eyes were so bright they were lighting up the caverns of Mafuyu’s body and he wanted to keep that forever.

 _This is what love should feel like,_ he thought, watching Ritsuka close his mouth around another bite of cake. _Like I’ll never be cold again._

Had Yuki made him feel like this too? He couldn’t remember. He hated himself for that.

Feeding Ritsuka bites of pineapple cake turned into kissing once the cake got over. Here, at least, Mafuyu had an edge on Ritsuka. There was something intensely _satisfying_ about kissing, once you got used to it—and because Yuki had always been the impatient sort, Mafuyu had learnt to kiss by the time he was twelve and enjoyed it _thoroughly,_ and he’d missed it for so long he was almost illegally happy to have it again.

Ritsuka’s inexperience was a gift from the gods. And it was _Mafuyu_ who had the privilege of teaching him to kiss—of holding his face, of rubbing his thumbs lightly over the arc of Ritsuka’s cheekbones until he groaned and kissed back harder.

His chest felt alive with fireflies every time Ritsuka turned a trick Mafuyu had used first back against him. _He’d_ taught Ritsuka that. And Ritsuka learnt so _fast._

But they tired of it eventually, until they were just resting their foreheads against each other and trying to regain their breath. His evening panic attack felt distant and foggy already. Altogether irrelevant when he had _this_ to curl up around instead. So when Ritsuka asked, “What happened there?” it took Mafuyu a moment to realize what he was talking about.

“Just a panic attack,” he mumbled. “Nothing much.”

“You worried us,” Ritsuka informed him gently. Mafuyu had a giddy moment of joy that he had people who _worried_ about him once more. “I didn’t know how to help.”

“Wait with me through it,” Mafuyu shrugged.

“I’d rather it didn’t happen again, if we can help it,” Ritsuka said carefully.

 _Dead language,_ Mafuyu thought despairingly. Yuki had been intimately familiar with Mafuyu’s habit of thinking himself into panic attacks. But one had to start translating _somewhere._ “I was thinking about stuff,” he muttered, cheeks flaming from how dumb it sounded. “And it...got too much.”

“Oh,” Ritsuka said. “Oh. Okay.”

“You can’t really help,” Mafuyu told him. “It’s just...how I used to be. How I’ve _always_ been.”

Ritsuka was frowning. It created a fold between his eyebrows. Mafuyu wanted to press the pad of his thumb to it, smooth it out. He kept his hands to himself, though.

With Yuki, he’d never had to restrain himself like this. Not until the very end when every minute with Yuki had been barbed wire in his throat—he’d _always_ been free to touch Yuki, their bodies as much each other’s as they were their own.

But Ritsuka wasn’t _his_ like that and he wasn’t Ritsuka’s and somewhere that was a relief. He didn’t _like_ the idea of Ritsuka touching him the way Yuki had so easily. He didn't want to belong to Ritsuka the way he'd belonged to Yuki. The idea made his chest hurt with panic again, thinking _if he gets me like that I'll never be able to breathe again._

Maybe one day. Hopefully _never._ And oh, he hated himself for disliking any part of what he'd had with Yuki.

“I’m sorry,” he added.

“Don’t be,” Ritsuka said immediately. “It’s...it’s not like you can help it.”

 _What if I can and I’m just refusing to?_ Mafuyu wondered. He didn’t say that out loud, though, because Ritsuka was trying. He was doing his best to understand what Mafuyu carried when Mafuyu was giving him barely anything to work with. If anyone was at fault here it _wasn’t_ Ritsuka.

He was _trying._ Mafuyu believed that, didn't know when he had fallen into believing it. And maybe it was _enough,_ for now, to believe that whenever Mafuyu found the courage to attempt translation, Ritsuka would attempt to meet him halfway.

Maybe that belief could carry him until he grew strong enough to try.

His heart ached suddenly, with a fierce and tender love for Ritsuka and how _good_ he was, how patient and complicated and wonderful. That of all the people he could have chosen he’d picked _Mafuyu_ to be kind to and Mafuyu still didn’t think he’d earned it—doubted he’d _ever_ earn it, not a second time—but it was _enough_ that he was here and _trying_ and Mafuyu would hold on to that for his own sake.

So he kissed Ritsuka again. And again.

And again.

**Author's Note:**

> pls comment they make me c:


End file.
